◎The Wheel◎

When Zhou Tan finally found Song Shiyan, both men were in a wretched state.

The area above and below the city wall had already been swallowed by the flames of war. Yan Fu’s forces pressed the assault; though the wall’s defenders were few, the capital’s fortifications had been built to be difficult to breach, and the fighting proved harder than expected.

Even so, it had all gone far more smoothly than anyone had dared to imagine.

Arrows filled the sky, and the sounds of battle and clashing troops echoed on every side. Zhou Tan had originally been making his way toward the wall under the escort of several guards, but before he had gone very far, he became separated from the rest.

A soldier, seeing how thin and frail he looked, charged at him without hesitation. Zhou Tan pressed a hand to his chest, coughing several times, and drew the white jade scholar’s sword at his hip with the other.

This sword and the white jade ring were the only things his teacher had ever left him; he carried them always. For years, no one had ever seen this sword drawn from its sheath, and so everyone had assumed the blade within that white jade scabbard was merely decorative, without any edge at all.

They had no idea it, too, could kill.

Blood splattered across his face. Zhou Tan pressed forward, sword in hand; whoever stood in his way, he struck them down without mercy. Song Shiyan watched, wide-eyed, as he executed a single elegant flourish of the blade and, without a trace of expression, cut down the last of the hidden guards at his own side.

Crimson blood dripped steadily down the length of the blade. Zhou Tan, seemingly with little strength left, dragged the sword toward him, its tip scraping a sharp, grating sound against the bloodstained stone tiles beneath.

“So you can actually wield a sword.”

Song Shiyan raised his head to look at him; the fading light of dusk cast his face in deep shadow, leaving only the vivid red of the blood still striking to the eye.

Zhou Tan pressed the blade to his throat.

“Where is my wife?”

Song Shiyan paid him no mind. “The first time I ever saw you, I thought you were different from all those grasping, scheming men at court. You had just been named the top scholar of the examinations, come to attend the night banquet at Qionglin, still carrying the air of a poor scholar about you — but I could tell, even then, what it was you truly wanted…”

Zhou Tan crouched before him, seizing his collar with something close to fury. “I asked you — where is my wife?”

“Dead,” Song Shiyan answered with a smile.

“Impossible! I saw her with my own eyes, up on that wall, just moments ago!” Zhou Tan, losing all composure, dragged him close, struggling to hold back his fury. “I will ask you once more. Where is she?”

“You saw her from below the wall — how fitting, isn’t it?” Song Shiyan said unhurriedly, the corner of his mouth curling, one eyebrow raised. “I threw her from the wall myself. By now, she’s likely already been trampled into a pulp of flesh beneath your own soldiers’ feet.”

Zhou Tan, his face ashen, coughed twice; his sword drew a thin line of blood across Song Shiyan’s throat. Before he could speak, Song Shiyan continued, “…I heard that ever since that day at the crossing when you two parted, you tried more than once to rush back to the capital alone, and in your fury and grief, fell so ill you could not even rise from your bed. Today, I truly did not expect to see you here at all.”

He had expected Zhou Tan to press him further, but instead, Zhou Tan seemed to lose all interest in speaking with him. He released his grip and rose to his feet, trembling. At that moment, Zhou Yang, who had been searching for the two of them, hurried over and steadied him. “Elder Brother!”

“Take some men and escort the crown prince back,” Zhou Tan said, weary. “I will go into the city first, to search for her.”

Zhou Yang said urgently, “Elder Brother doesn’t look well at all — take the carriage and find His Highness first. I’ll search for her myself.”

Zhou Tan shook his head. “No need.”

The battle had gone far more smoothly than anyone had expected. Within a single hour, Yan Fu had already sounded the gongs of victory and begun rounding up prisoners and tallying the wounded. Song Xixuan’s carriage made its way all the way to the gates of the imperial court, even greeted along the way by some of the bolder citizens who had ventured out to line the streets.

Zhou Tan had walked only a few steps when he saw two soldiers carrying a wounded man past him, and a sudden suspicion seized him. He turned and saw Song Shiyan had just picked up the sword lying beside him. “Where is General Li?”

“Ha ha ha ha, and here I thought you had forgotten all about him,” Song Shiyan said, using the sword to support himself as he struggled to his feet. “Zhou Tan, this battle went far too easily. Do you truly believe that capturing me means everything is settled?”

Zhou Tan’s expression changed at once; he called out sharply, “Guards!”

A soldier came hurrying over. “My lord.”

“Go find your general. Tell him it is by my instruction — have him take men immediately to the remaining three gates of the capital, especially Chenghua Gate near Ting Mountain, and search the mountain thoroughly if possible… and secure the northern and southern river crossings as well. I fear someone may attempt a sneak attack or a forced breakout while we are occupied entering the imperial city.”

He turned to Zhou Yang. “Take men into the palace and protect Ziqian.”

Zhou Yang hesitated. “But what about Elder Brother? What will you do?”

Zhou Tan gestured with a raised hand. “He is finished, and has no intention of resisting further. Go.”

Song Shiyan was still watching him with a smile, murmuring to himself. “Do you know, while you were at the Ministry of Justice, your wife, in order to save her own life, gave herself to me completely. She has a lovely red mole on her shoulder, quite beautiful…”

He was, of course, lying — he had never been one to force himself upon anyone; what he had truly wanted was to see Qu You submit to him wholly, body and soul. But even when he broke her leg bones, she had still forced herself to lift her chin and look him in the eye, that same fire burning in her gaze that had unsettled him from the very first moment they met.

Song Shiyan, watching Qu You’s soaked shoulders by the dim candlelight of the prison, had thought with a touch of envy that it wasn’t that she felt no pain, nor that she did not fear death — she simply had the capacity to endure absolutely anything.

A muscle twitched at Zhou Tan’s brow. Without warning, he kicked Song Shiyan’s knee, knocking him flat, then drove his sword viciously through his left hand, pinning it to the stone tiles.

The hand that had only just been wounded was wounded again; cold sweat broke out across Song Shiyan’s body at once. Unable to pull the sword free, he could only lie sprawled on the ground in wretched defeat.

“Speak such nonsense again, insult my wife again, and I will cut off your ten fingers, one by one.”

A flash of bloody hatred passed through Zhou Tan’s pale eyes, though a dark, brooding smile spread across his face. “I will ask you one last time. Where is she?”

“Your Highness, do you know how I conducted interrogations at the Ministry of Justice, back in the fifteenth year of Yongning? Every one of the thirty-two hand techniques, I read of in ancient texts and tested myself, on living men… Ah, but I forget — you are already an expert in such matters, surely far more familiar than I. I wonder, would those very punishments prove even more effective, applied to Your Highness’s own noble person?”

“Ha ha ha ha ha,” Song Shiyan seized the blade of the sword with his other hand and pulled outward with all his strength, blood pouring freely, and the more it hurt, the more excitedly he laughed. “I won’t lie to you — I would rather like to try it myself. Let Xiaobai administer the punishment to me personally.”

Zhou Tan realized, belatedly, that whether it was the earlier insult against Qu You or this reckless provocation now, Song Shiyan was doing it all deliberately — goading him, hoping to be killed by his hand.

But there were still many questions weighing on his mind: why, at a time like this, had Song Shiyan not remained within the palace, but come instead to the city wall? Where had Li Wei, the Li family’s army, and the Xishao forces they had fought earlier all gone? If Song Shiyan had let the Xishao men into the capital, did they still have some hidden plan in reserve?

With the Li family’s forces and the Xishao army at his disposal, Song Shiyan had clearly still had a fighting chance — even Yan Fu had braced himself for a difficult battle. So why had he withdrawn his troops, seemingly resigned to despair, seeking only death?

But his mind, at present, had room for nothing but the question of where Qu You had gone.

Ever since that day Qu You had schemed to secure their safe escape, he had woken only slowly, and upon waking had struck Zhou Yang across the face and coughed up blood, then fallen gravely ill. Several times he had forced his sick body to attempt a return to save her, and each time, he had failed.

Once he had finally recovered enough, he had ridden ahead alone as the main army returned from Lin’an, and there, atop the wall, he had clearly seen her — had even called out her name.

But she had vanished from his sight as abruptly as an illusion.

Then the soldiers and cannon fire had swallowed the place whole.

He had come too late.

Zhou Tan turned these words over in his mind, a faint metallic taste rising in his throat. He withdrew his sword, and, utterly lost, turned to leave — only to encounter a guard hurrying over to report. “My lord, we have found no woman’s body beneath the city gates. The moat is shallow; a body could not remain adrift there for long, and we have already sent men downstream to search.”

The guard spoke respectfully, then suddenly lifted his eyes and cried out in alarm. “My lord!”

Song Shiyan had already climbed up onto the wall.

He stood there, swaying unsteadily, the wall towering high beneath him — one careless movement and he would fall. But he paid it no mind at all, only laughing wildly, pointing down at the ground below.

“From the imperial city, to Ting Mountain, to Xiuqing Temple, to Fanlou, the Bian River, Nanxie Street, the western water gate, Doumou Temple… and beyond this very wall — Jinghua Mountain, the Field of Late Spring, the far-reaching river… how absurd, that these very rivers and mountains of mine could not even hold me!”

Zhou Tan watched him in silence, and only once his laughter had run its course did he say, flatly, “Great mountains and rivers can only hold a fate lived with honesty and openness.”

“These mountains and rivers belong to Great Yin, and Great Yin belongs to all the people beneath heaven. You, blinded by your own selfish schemes and hidden secrets, were naturally never meant to be held by it.”

A bitter winter wind blew in from beyond the walls, nearly knocking him from his perch. Song Shiyan closed his eyes; the wind cut across his face like a blade, and yet he felt, for the first time in his life, an unprecedented sense of release.

“Xiaobai, you are just like my teacher, just like Father — always so righteous, always looking down from on high, pointing at empty air, demanding I serve the whole world beneath heaven. But what is this world, and how has it ever treated me? However much you speak, none of it moves me half so much as that single tear your wife shed atop Fanlou, for a woman she had never even met… If even one person had shed such a tear for me, had noticed sooner that I was different, instead of only condemning me, spitting on me, mouthing endless words of righteousness and virtue… perhaps today, everything would have turned out entirely differently.”

A gust of wind swept past Zhou Tan’s ear; his lashes trembled faintly as he said, low and quiet, “In whom would you have placed such hope… The way of this world is a raging torrent. Before finding a companion to walk beside, is there any soul who does not have to save themselves?”

Fortunately, along his own thorny path home through the night, he had found someone waiting for him, lantern lit.

“Well said. You were simply luckier than I. Xiaobai… after today, you will surely rise swiftly, ascend to the council, become chancellor yourself. But remember well what I have told you today — do not let the sovereign you serve with all your heart ever come to harbor such thoughts toward you, one day.”

He sank down, sitting, and said, very softly, “Do you know — if Uncle Xiao were still alive, you and I would address each other as brothers.”

Before Zhou Tan could answer, he continued, “Never mind. Uncle Xiao is dead, and as for me — I am nothing more than a cat swapped in the cradle, of unknown origin. The moment Father learned the truth of my birth, he issued the edict to depose me at once… what right do I have to call you brother?”

Zhou Tan fell silent for a moment. “Before the Su case, I truly did once hope to serve Your Highness faithfully.”

Song Shiyan laughed and waved a hand, beckoning him closer, then murmured, “Go and find her. They are on Ting Mountain.”

“My thanks.” Zhou Tan turned to leave, then suddenly stopped, and asked in earnest, “After you die, who should I have handle your burial? The Crown Princess?”

“No need,” Song Shiyan answered indifferently. “Go to my residence and find an advisor there. His name is…”

He stopped mid-sentence.

Zhou Tan turned back, puzzled, and saw Song Shiyan’s expression freeze for a moment before breaking once more into laughter — a laugh that rang unbearably desolate amid the howling wind, with snow threatening to fall.

He tilted his head back, laughing at the sky, and began to sing a tune often heard in the streets and alleys of the capital.

“…I drift upon the waters of the great river, borne away; beneath the bright sun I climb to the capital, past nine-layered phoenix mountains… The immortal bestowed on me a song of lasting peace, sending me on my way like a cold and distant star.”

Zhou Tan recalled, dimly, that this was the Song of Lasting Peace in the Capital, Year of the Rooster, written by Bai Shating upon his first arrival in the capital.

Song Shiyan spread his arms wide and fell backward. Just then, along the road outside the capital’s gates, a carriage happened to come rushing by, carrying the last load of army provisions as Yan Fu’s forces entered the city. The gates stood wide open, and the driver moved at great speed; even seeing someone fall before him, he could not rein in the horses in time.

And so the speeding carriage rolled mercilessly over the deposed crown prince’s body, leaving a long trail of blood behind, before continuing on into the capital’s gates — into a city entering an era made entirely new.

The sky had turned a dull, murky yellow, as though snow might fall at any moment. Someone draped a white fox-fur cloak over Zhou Tan’s shoulders; he did not linger, mounting his horse at once and riding hard toward Ting Mountain.

Only as he passed Fanlou did an unwelcome memory surface — that night of the Qionglin banquet, when Song Shiyan, in his pale gold-and-purple robe, had first laid eyes on him and said, “It feels as though we have known each other all our lives.” He had answered respectfully, “Your Highness is too kind.”

Afterward, their wine cups had clinked together, droplets spattering onto a nearby branch of flowers. The crown prince, having finished his cup, had turned back and plucked a rose growing along the corridor’s edge, then tossed it carelessly aside. When the night’s banquet ended, Zhou Tan had walked out onto the corridor to clear his head from the wine, and found that same rose already trampled beyond recognition by the crowd.

The sound of strings and flutes had drifted together with the delicate fragrance of flowers; within all of Qionglin’s gardens, only that one quiet corner of the still night had remained undisturbed, and no one else had ever come there again.